LIVERMORE — Constance Hanstedt admits she never had an easy relationship with her mother, Virginia.

For decades, Hanstedt lived with fear and self-doubt, trying to be the perfect daughter but rarely able to connect with her chronically anxious, disapproving and often-depressed mother, she said.

When Virginia developed Alzheimer’s disease, Hanstedt said the challenge of seeing her mother through the illness seemed insurmountable. Halfway through the ordeal, Hanstedt did the one thing that made sense to her — she began to write.

The result is “Don’t Leave Yet, How My Mother’s Alzheimer’s Opened My Heart,” a memoir chronicling their life together, her mother’s struggle with the disease and Hanstedt’s personal journey to reclaim her own identity even as her mother’s slipped away. The story has received multiple honors. A poet and business owner, the Livermore woman didn’t start out to write a book.

“I was trying to put all these thoughts into poems,” she recalled. “But (the poetry) was becoming a little dark.”

Her mentor, Santa Cruz poet, writer and teacher Ellen Bass, was impressed with the quality of her student’s writing and suggested she try something different.

“(The poetry) was really confining her,” Bass recalled. “Once she allowed herself to move this into prose and memoir, she had so much more room. She could really, really take us into these scenes.”

In 2004, four years after her mother was diagnosed, Hanstedt began writing the first draft of her book in longhand, penning simple vignettes, dialogue and scenes she recalled from her past. She sent chunks of the manuscript to her siblings to read. They supported her efforts, but friends frequently couldn’t understand her desire to revisit her painful past.

“It just felt so good to be able to write it down,” she explained. “It was so I could understand myself, my mother and our very complicated and flawed relationship.

“Through all this I came to accept the inevitable, and to accept her for what she was,” she added. “I (learned) to become more kind, patient and calm with her. The most important thing I learned was compassion for her and the importance to her and to all Alzheimer’s patients of dignity. We can’t control what happens in our bodies, but we can control how we feel.”

Hanstedt’s work was a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association memoir competition in 2011. Published by the hybrid She Writes Press in 2015, it was named a finalist in the National Indie Excellence Book Awards for memoirs and in the USA Best Book Awards in narrative nonfiction.

“I was very surprised,” she said. “To be recognized for a larger work that you put your whole heart and soul into was wonderful, really.”

Her mother died in 2008, and for now, Hanstedt is considering working on a poetry compilation. She says that shepherding her mother through Alzheimer’s and writing about the experience was an unexpected turn of events that helped her reclaim her own lost strength.

“It was definitely a letting go and a rediscovery of who that person was and who I was,” she said. “I don’t have to let that person go completely; the person I was and that my mother was is all part of our history; we can’t let it go completely, but we can accept it.”

The memoir is an eloquent and personal account that reflects the experience of many families living with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, Bass said.

“I and the other students in class were encouraging her to keep on writing this because it was so powerful,” she said. “I don’t know how many people it will be able to reach … but even if it doesn’t reach a great number, it may reach a small number of people in a way that’s very important to them, and that’s very gratifying too.”

IF YOU GO

Constance Hanstedt is scheduled to discuss her book at 2 p.” m. June 5 in the Livermore library at 1188 S. Liver-more Ave. The event is free, and copies of the book will be available for sale and signing.